Prospect Park (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
In New York City, virtually every square foot of open space is highly contested, considered, or counted on. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, open spaces have become more important than ever. Yet while open space initiatives such as outdoor dining and car-less streets were widely praised during the summer months and into the fall, questions have persisted about how people will adapt during the winter and what the long-term plans are for the utilization of open space in New York.
Importantly, questions have also been raised around how successful the city’s limited open space programs have been in marginalized communities. These were some of the issues and questions tackled in a recent series of expert discussions held virtually by the Municipal Arts Society of New York (MAS), a nonprofit group. Each panel focused on a different issue related to “the future of open space,” including green space, the public realm, small businesses, and transit, with thoughts from scientists, politicians, advocacy group leaders, and others.
Guests joined from all over the country, including Baltimore and Los Angeles, providing important perspectives from outside the bubble of the five boroughs. Susan Chin, the principal of an independent design consultancy, Design Connects, moderated all four conversations.
MAS President Elizabeth Goldstein set the guidestar for the series, asking of the city’s initial covid-era open space programs: “With so much uncertainty still ahead, what are the long-term implications of these learning experiments, and how have the structural inequities predating COVID been exacerbated by this crisis?”
“The Future of Open Space for People” focused on the ways in which COVID-19 has shaped how we see the public realm, especially how we have reimagined open space to replace our indoor lives. What does open space mean for us during a pandemic? Participants in the discussion generally said they see this as an opportunity to correct historical wrongs in marginalized communities.
Panelists included Jennifer Goold, Executive Director of the Neighborhood Design Center in Baltimore; Wajenda Chabeshi, manager of the L.A. Great Streets initiative; and Janet Liff, the director of the Neighborhood Empowerment Initiative in New York City, an advocacy group part of the OpenPlans nonprofit organization.
Goold said that the pandemic allowed for us “to reconsider our relationship to the built environment,” especially after so many small businesses have been hurt. This is why Goold and her partners have been working through the Baltimore Development Corporation to invest grant funds in local retail business districts while creating infrastructure that works with social distancing.
Chabeshi agreed and explained how his initiative focused on designing streets that tailored to the community’s needs, which led to the development and reconstruction of 70-plus L.A. streets.
Liff applauded New York City’s open streets program, which she called a “radical approach addressing COVID times,” that helped small businesses thrive and gave residents seriously needed open space. Still, there have been questions about the extent of the program as implemented by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration.
While the panelists saw opportunity, they also noted some significant barriers. Liff stressed that money was scarce when it came to creating green infrastructure since that sort of construction required digging into the street and entirely redesigning it.
When asked what they thought about the claim that cities were ‘dead,’ the panelists shook their heads. Goold spoke about how open spaces allowed for the people of Baltimore to voice their concerns about social issues by protesting and demonstrating, while Liff cited outside dining and open streets as key forces that kept New York City alive amid the pandemic.
“The Future of Open Space for Small Business” discussion revolved around the long-term effects of COVID-19 on businesses in New York City. Panelists addressed questions about the long-term implications of outdoor dining and future plans for dealing with cold weather for businesses trying to offer more outdoors. A significant portion of the discussion centered on ensuring accessibility and equity in these new open spaces.
Panelists included Wellington Chen, executive director of Chinatown Partnerships; Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, Deputy Director of the Street Vendor Project; and City Council Member Keith Powers, a Manhattan Democrat who passed legislation in July to suspend the commercial rent tax in order to help small businesses stay afloat during the pandemic.
Kaufman-Gutierrez stressed the notion that New York City street vendors have been wrongly excluded from COVID-19 relief efforts. She argued that vendors be allowed to participate in open street business opportunities like any brick and mortar store. Anything less than that, she argued, was simply unfair.
Powers mentioned that the City Council had recently voted to make outdoor dining permanent and that he was working on a plan for small businesses to secure affordable leases. “It’s about our neighborhoods, it’s about our businesses, it’s about our workforce, and it’s a way of making sure that we stay afloat here,” he said. Powers’ plan would use property tax abatements for landlords to incentivize more affordable leases for commercial tenants.
Kaufman-Gutierrez said that the city should extend the “fix it, don't fine it” approach to street vendors, not just brick and mortar businesses. “No one wants a fine, especially not after suffering months and months without relief,” she said. She also suggested that vendors set up in street fair models where they could easily attain temporary permits.
“The Future of Open Green Space” focused on the importance of accessibility to parks in cities. Panelists included Dr. Michelle Kondo, a research social scientist for the USDA forest service; Benita Hussain, Director of the 10 Minute Walk Campaign at The Trust for Public Land; and Terry Carta, Executive Director of the Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, which she marketed as “linear park meets transportation corridor.”
While greenways offer much needed open space for bikers and pedestrians, they aren’t all connected. Communities without green spaces report more problems relating to mental health. If greenways were connected so that every community could gain access, this could even curtail gun violence, according to Dr. Kondo.
Hussain mentioned that mayors across the country count the parks in their community as “integral to their growth plan” since they make neighborhoods livable and attractive to families. She also pointed out that the mental health benefits associated with parks and other open spaces are compelling.
“The Future of Open Space for Active Transit” focused on transportation initiatives in New York City, questioning how a newfound reliance on open space might offer important insights that could improve the current transportation system as well as equitable access to roadways, bike lanes, and parks.
Panelists included Sam Schwartz, former DOT Chief Engineer and current CEO of Sam Schwartz Transportation Consultants; Anna Luten, former Bicycle Mayor of Amsterdam; Courtney Williams, founder of The Brown Bike Girl, a bicycle advocacy organization for communities of color in New York City; and Danny Harris, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives.
Luten spoke about the challenges of educating people about the importance of cycling in the city and the need for relentless advocacy. Williams argued there is little to no separation between racial lines and transit lines: “the problem is not that people don’t want to ride bikes, it’s about access,” she said. She also said bike lanes mainly exist in white, affluent neighborhoods, and that equity should be the leading consideration in prioritizing infrastructure and opportunity. Williams said the pandemic exposed structural inequities that predated COVID-19 and that the need for bike infrastructure has become far more apparent as New Yorkers seek safe, outdoor ways to get around.
Harris pushed back on a question about looking to other cities like Amsterdam for guidance: “It’s not innovative, these ideas have been working," he said of key pillars of expanding access and infrastructure for pedestrians and bike-riders. "We need the leadership to help build and scale these ideas.” Schwartz mentioned Barcelona as a model for design aimed at encouraging people to walk and bike more. He also said that in addition to new designs and ideas, a key to post-covid transit success is simple: better traffic enforcement.
The concept of teaching people from a young age about the importance of safe biking and the navigation of trailways was a common theme. Luten noted that in the Netherlands, bike education starts at a very young age. Indeed, she was required to attain a bike certificate in primary school. But, Williams said, unfortunately no matter how much you educate people in New York City, nothing can adequately protect them from the inadequate biking infrastructure, especially in poor neighborhoods. She did note that bike lane infrastructure is at times a more complicated endeavor in poorer neighborhoods because residents believe that they represent the first steps of gentrification.
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by Elijah Newman for Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette
SBS Commissioner Doris at a small business (photo: @NYC_SBS)
Frustrated City Council members and hopeful––yet weary––small business advocates took to a hearing Tuesday to express their concerns about the Open Storefronts program launched recently by Mayor de Blasio after outcry from the business community, particularly smaller retailers. Small businesses, many of which are struggling to hold on if they haven’t already closed due to the pandemic and a lack of government help, can enroll in the program that, as of now, will give them through December 31 to sell their merchandise right outside their establishments.
After months of city government action mostly focused on the restaurant industry, the city’s Business Improvement District Association wrote a letter in early October to the mayor and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson calling for such an initiative, proposed to mirror the success of the Open Restaurants program, increase foot traffic, and drive up sales for retailers. The BID Association pushed for the inception of the program for months before its launch on October 28, weeks after its open letter.
Tuesday’s City Council hearing was led by the Council Member Andrew Cohen, a Bronx Democrat who chairs the Council Committee on Consumer Affairs and Business Licensing, and Council Member Mark Gjonaj, also a Bronx Democrat, who chairs the Council Committee on Small Businesses.
Cohen began by acknowledging the effect online shopping has had on local communities, citing a lack of storefronts in “typical high-traffic areas.” He acknowledged the impact of COVID-19, calling the pandemic a “final nail in the coffin” for some small businesses and large retailers alike. He attributed the survival of small retailers to either resilience or “pure New York-style hustle,” but also pointed out that as of November, small business’ retail revenue was down 35% compared to January. Whether it’s due to the lack of the tourist market, the number of people working from home or avoiding shopping, or the capacity restrictions for stores, even small businesses that are weathering the storm are still suffering, he said.
Open Storefronts is intended to combat some of these trends, and help small businesses in the city survive.
“Today, the committees are eager to hear directly from retailers on their experience with the program,” Cohen said. “We are also grateful that the administration has made time to be here today, as we would like to hear the reasoning for some of the elements of the program. For instance, I’m curious as to why the program was not started earlier, perhaps in the summer when people could take advantage of the good weather. I’d also like to know why the program doesn’t fully extend the same permissions as the outdoor dining initiative…We’re also keen to hear how widespread the program is. Outdoor dining has been well-received so much so that we have passed legislation to make it permanent, but the success of outdoor retail is less clear.”
Gjonaj opened with a handful of daunting statistics regarding unemployment rates, revenue loss, and business closures. “According to a city comptroller report,” he said, “over 800 retail establishments have closed permanently between March 1 and July 10, causing a permanent loss of jobs and wages in the city, as well as tax base.” He acknowledged gratitude small business owners feel for the city Department of Small Business Services’ funding assistance programs and thanked SBS Commissioner Jonnell Doris for his work to get the initiatives up and running.
But Gjonaj also made clear his worries of whether or not it's enough to sustain struggling businesses. “I fear that small retail stores will soon be a relic of the past,” he said. “They need more than we’ve given them, and they need it today.”
According to Commissioner Doris, roughly 40,000 businesses across the city are eligible to participate in the Open Storefront program, but just 563 businesses are signed up so far — a rate Cohen called “modest.”
When asked, Doris did not have data for how many retailers do not qualify for the program due to issues like a lack of sidewalk depth (participating stores must have 8 feet clearance for foot traffic as well as space for merchandise).
The commissioner cited a couple of reasons for limited participation thus far. “One, we know that some of the stores are already participating in the program,” he said. “We also know that many of the stores put their wares out front [without applying], so we have to go around––which we have been doing––to just tell them to sign up for the program. That’s just that information gap there. The reality, the harsh reality, is that...we’ve heard from some of our BID partners, we’ve heard from businesses, as well, that the pandemic has caused somewhat of a slowdown, [with the] uptick in COVID transmission in hot zones, et cetera.”
In response to Cohen’s question on why the urgency to create this program wasn’t parallel to that of the urgency for Open Restaurants, Doris responded, “We do know that this is the time that our small businesses need it––particularly our storefront businesses. This is the time that they actually get 70% of their sales. We want to make sure that we highlight this time and give them the opportunity to do it during the holiday season. The last several months of the year [are] when they make the majority of their sales.”
While “no one is turned away” from the application according to Doris, there was a general acknowledgement at the hearing that there is a lack of awareness about the program. Council Member Karen Koslowitz, a Queens Democrat, said that while walking down Austin Street, the “5th Ave of Queens,” she noticed only one store had their merchandise displayed outside. The commissioner explained that outreach is “extensive,” noting they are partnered with 76 BIDs, have conducted 233 webinars and done trainings, have taken to the grounds to speak with businesses, connected with the chambers of commerce in the boroughs, utilized media, and sent out materials.
The hearing, however, demonstrated that there are multiple concerns––the narrow timeline being one of them. Responding to Gjonaj’s question on whether or not the program will be extended after the end of the year, Doris said he did not have an announcement to make but that the administration is open to, and reviewing, the idea. Gjonaj urged Doris and the administration to give small businesses a “fighting chance” and to make the decision sooner rather than later, adding, “They’ve got four more weeks, hopefully, to the end of the year. They’re second-guessing whether or not they should make any investment, and the creativity of how to market their products, enclosures, so on and so forth…There’s no reason to wait for the last moment.”
Gjonaj continued to bring up the $37 million Lower and Moderate Income Storefront Loan spearheaded by de Blasio and Doris, clarifying with the commissioner that $35 million of that investment is for loans, not grants. He raised the clause within participation in the loan program that requires storeowners to make personal guarantees, calling this requirement “odd” in light of New York’s recent ban on similar clauses presented to renters by landlords. He suggested that these types of clauses are potentially deterring small businesses from participating.
“We’re partnered with a lender…and those are regular loan procedures that occur when we have small business loans,” Doris said. “We certainly hear that as a concern. We don’t believe that that would be an issue based upon our research with the businesses that are potentially able to utilize this program. We will monitor it to see if it is, but don’t think it will be and we don't think it's something that is prohibited…It’s generally how business loans are operated now.”
There is a “backstop” to handle these challenges, he clarified, citing a loan loss reserve and noting the program is interest-free. He claimed confidence in the product, that it is a “targeted” fund to lower- and moderate-income communities who were not assisted by the federal government.
In response to Gjonaj asking if the commissioner believed $35 million in the loan program to be “enough,” Doris said no and called for another federal stimulus package, saying the only entity that can make a true difference is the federal government. To this, Gjonaj recalled the recent de Blasio proposal for a $900 million school bus program.
“The money that we’ve thrown into this so far is laughable…We’ve abused small businesses as the piggy banks in the well that we constantly go to to draw water from, and in their time of need, we weren’t there for them,” Gjonaj said. “The facts are in the dollar amount. I know, commissioner, that if you had it your way, if we had a magic wand, we’d be giving billions of dollars out in grants…To replace the word ‘targeted,’ I would use the word ‘discouraging.’”
Issues regarding the physical execution of storefront operations like utilizing sidewalks while following guidelines, sharing space with restaurants, obtaining access to roadways, and dealing with competing street vendors were also detailed as problems during the hearing.
Council Member Peter Koo of Queens referred to downtown Flushing, in his district, asking how businesses are supposed to compete with large amounts of unlicensed vendors selling “everything under the sun” and taking up sidewalk space without any authoritative enforcement. He also mentioned security concerns with putting merchandise outside (they are required to be pulled back inside at the end of each day) and inquired about the possibility of a tax moratorium for small businesses during the holiday season. Doris said the Department of Small Business Services is not an enforcement agency and that he doesn’t have any information about a tax moratorium. He acknowledged the concerns and pledged to continue to work with downtown Flushing businesses and Koo.
Koslowitz, Gjonaj, and Cohen expressed similar concerns regarding street vendors, alleging that rules are not enforced by the city. Gjonaj said it’s a potentially dangerous race to see who can get on the sidewalk first. “We need to make a plan before we have to be reactive to a tragedy,” he said. Expressing frustration, Cohen said that there were no answers given on the matter during the hearing because there are no policy answers in general.
Mark Caserta, the executive director of the Park Slope 5th Avenue BID representing the BID Association, outlined reasons for hesitation to join the program and presented numerous suggested improvements. He noted that concerns include budget and staffing restrictions, lack of experience with outdoor setups, busyness and stress, and weariness to be “early adopters” of such a program. He recommended that the program be extended at least until capacity limitations inside stores are lifted, an education program for businesses who do not benefit from BID Associations, and a publication of data in a similar vein to that of the Open Restaurant program.
The president of the Bronx Chamber of Commerce, Lisa Sorin, agreed and addressed concerns similar to Caserta’s. She attributed the short timeline to use the program as well as the late notice of its existence, weather issues, worries about enforcement problems resembling what restaurants experienced, and oversaturation of sidewalks with merchandise, restaurants, and homeless individuals. She also brought up the storefront loan program, telling an anecdote about a minority-owned business facing eviction and in “desperate need” of the money, but unable to apply until after December 13 because they are in the second phase of the loan distribution. The store will only be eligible if there is money left in the loan program and if the store meets all criteria, she said.
Camelia Tepelus of the Morris Park BID in the Bronx continued the conversation on vendors, calling for more enforcement. She also said there is no visual distinction between vendors and small businesses once they’re operating outside and suggested some kind of demarcation for participating businesses. CEO and president of the New York Women’s Chamber of Commerce Quenia Abreu called for more promotion, and more direct involvement of small businesses in decision-making roundtables, as well as the inclusion of the organizations that work closely with small businesses and assist with loans and grants.
In final remarks, Cohen acknowledged the work SBS has done facing a daunting task. Gjonaj closed saying, “Nothing is perfect, but as long as we keep trying and improving on what we have, we continue to make a difference.”
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by Angelica Crisostomo, Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette
Mayor de Blasio's slow-moving internet promises (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
It took a global pandemic that brought the city to a grinding halt for Mayor Bill de Blasio to order that wi-fi be installed at every homeless shelter in the city housing children and to strike a deal to install high-speed broadband internet in every New York City Housing Authority public housing development.
More than six years after the mayor promised to create high-speed broadband networks across the city, nearly 20% of New Yorkers still lack access to the internet at home or by mobile device. While advocates have praised the mayor’s recent efforts, which includes a long-awaited Internet Master Plan for citywide “universal broadband” he announced in January, they wonder why it took so long to address this glaring problem in one of the richest cities in the richest country on earth.
In May 2014, just a few months into his tenure, de Blasio gave the keynote address at the opening of Internet Week New York and, as is his style, made lofty promises that were not followed through on.
“Our approach is going to be bold and it’s going to be decisive, because we simply haven’t done well enough in this city,” de Blasio said in the speech. “The goal is quite simple: We must have universal, affordable, high-speed internet access throughout this city. It’s as simple as that. And broadband’s essential for everything this community needs to do. It’s essential for everything we need to do to be a fair and just city. Because we can’t continue to have a digital divide that holds back so many of our citizens.”
“We really believe in an inclusive economy, in an effective education system, in a vibrant democracy, it all runs through broadband access,” the mayor said.
But the city has taken slow and faltering steps in achieving that goal. About 18% of New Yorkers, more than 1.5 million, do not have a broadband or a mobile internet connection, according to American Community Survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau. About 40% or 3.5 million people, only have one or the other. During the coronavirus pandemic, the lack of internet access for so many New Yorkers, especially poor people and people of color, including children living in shelters and public housing residents, has come into stark relief and been the source of controversy for the de Blasio administration.
On November 24, the mayor announced that the city had reached a settlement in a lawsuit with Verizon Fios which will require the company to provide high-speed broadband access to 500,000 more New Yorkers, including every resident of all NYCHA developments. “We've had a digital divide. We've had a huge disparity of who gets access to the internet and who doesn't, who gets reliable, fast broadband service, who doesn't, who can afford it, who can't,” he said, “But more and more, we understand that we have to create a society in which everyone has equal access...It has taken a lot of work and there's been some real struggle here and some real challenges, but we've gotten to a point where something real and tangible is going to happen for people, particularly working people and folks who have been left out.”
Among earlier achievements the administration has boasted is the LinkNYC program, which converted old payphones into free public wi-fi kiosks around the city. As of November 30, the city had set up 1,809 active LinkNYC kiosks since the program was launched in February 2016; 13 more kiosks have been installed but do not have wi-fi yet. The program, however, has been criticized for less presence throughout poorer communities than in areas of high commuter and tourist foot traffic, particularly in Manhattan. The administration also prides itself on having provided free internet service to the NYCHA Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing development in the country with more than 6,000 residents, mostly Black and Hispanic families.
It was only in January of this year that the mayor released his Internet Master Plan, which aims to leverage city infrastructure and franchise agreements authorized by the city to provide affordable broadband access citywide. The plan would create competition where there currently barely exists any because of how private companies have been allowed to operate in the city so far. It entails creating an open-access fiber cable network across the five boroughs, prioritizing low-income communities, which can be used by multiple providers.
At a City Council hearing last month, the city’s Chief Technology Officer John Paul Farmer said the administration is getting ready to release its Universal Solicitation for Broadband, which will encourage competition and therefore create more affordable options. Real initial progress on the plan will only be seen in 2021, de Blasio’s final of his eight years as mayor.
The plan does promise boons for the city. In the best-case scenario, by 2045, it could create 165,000 jobs, increase personal income by $49 billion and create $142 billion in Gross City Product in that time, the plan predicts.
The need for equitable internet access has never been more dire. As the city closed its schools, thousands of children did not have the ability to access remote learning. Without the internet, families could not access health services which had transitioned online. The decennial Census was carried out mostly online this year for the first time. From public assistance application to rental benefits, government services are being provided through the internet en masse and those who required them most had the least access.
It’s the school system, however, which really seems to have brought the digital divide to the fore. Remote learning required internet-capable devices, and the city set out to purchase hundreds of thousands of tablets when schools were first closed. Since then, the Department of Education has handed out more than 300,000 internet-enabled iPads to students and another 175,000 devices to schools. But nine months into the pandemic outbreak in the city tens of thousands of students still do not have either a device or access to the internet.
In interviews and news conferences, de Blasio has been defensive when pressed on that glaring problem.
“I appreciate that there are professional critics in this society, but I really think there has to be recognition of the work that people did to close the digital divide,” he said in a November 19 news conference when presented with criticism from other elected officials and advocates, “to do something that had never been done before, back in April, as the pandemic was horrendous, to put these devices in the hands of kids. And I don't quite understand why the same question keeps being asked when in fact, the evidence is that immense work was done to provide devices, to address any problem with devices, to provide service if they need a different service. That work has literally been done now, family by family, for kids in shelters. Sometimes it's true that we don't have as many devices as we want to. But the bottom line is it's just been an endless effort to provide free technology to any family who needs it. And that's never stopped, and it's been consistent.”
What rankles advocates like those at the Legal Aid Society representing homeless families and elected officials like Public Advocate Jumaane Williams is that the city had ample time and resources to address the digital divide, particularly by providing broadband access at city-funded and -run facilities like homeless shelters and NYCHA buildings. But the administration only took expedited measures after the pandemic made them absolutely necessary.
“This administration is littered with lost opportunities to bridge the digital divide,” said City Council Member Ben Kallos in a phone interview last month. Kallos’ main gripe with the administration is that it hasn’t taken advantage of its power to approve franchise agreements with internet service providers. For instance, he pointed out, when the city and state approved the merger between Spectrum and Time Warner in 2016, he said the de Blasio administration should have insisted that the company provide free or low-cost internet to all public housing buildings in lieu of the nearly $150 million in franchise fees that the company pays every year. “At the time, we didn't need $150 million and I would still argue today that we still don't need that money. We can use that money in kind to get more low-income New Yorkers internet,” said Kallos, who chairs the Council’s contracts committee.
He also pointed out that the LinkNYC program, which held much promise, has been slow to realize its goals and the city has not held CityBridge, the consortium contracted to create the system, accountable for missing its target. By 2022, there were meant to be 7,500 kiosks across the five boroughs; there are less than 2,000 currently, and the system did not provide the revenue for the city that was projected.
“A revenue-first approach to the internet, whether through a franchise or a kiosk, is not the model we should have,” Kallos said. “We should have a model that prioritizes connectivity.” Kallos told Gotham Gazette that he is preparing a proposal that would use the city’s zoning regulations to help expand broadband akin to how the de Blasio administration has implemented the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing policy to build affordable housing. His idea, which could be termed Mandatory Inclusionary Internet, would take advantage of the expansion of 5G networks in the city, providing companies that provide affordable broadband access with incentives in the form of favorable placement of 5G cell towers and antennas.
The de Blasio administration’s Internet Master Plan deals with both short-term and long-term solutions for broadband access, and while providing universal broadband could be a years-long project, there are immediate steps the city could take. “I supported the plan then, I still support it now. I just don't know what the delay is,” said Gigi Sohn, distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Technology Law and Policy, who served as counselor to former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Tom Wheeler from 2013 to 2016.
“They need to start on the shorter-term, like yesterday,” she said, pointing to city-owned facilities that could easily be used to expand internet access. “You’ve got all these community anchor institutions. Those are universities, schools, libraries, hospitals, all over the city...So the connectivity is there. You've just got to harness it.”
Robert Seamans, associate professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, analyzed the digital divide when he served as senior economist on President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers between 2015 and 2016. In an interview, he expressed concerns about how the city’s digital divide could end up having longer term effects, particularly for low-income students without internet access who will fall behind their wealthier counterparts. “I worry a lot about education and the resulting disparities in education that we're going to see coming out of this one-to-two-year period where there's some households that won't be affected that much and others where their kids are just gonna basically be two years behind where they should be,” he said.
Seamans suggested several different means of tackling the problem, which address the causes behind it such as lack of consumer choice or the inability to afford access. “My belief is that there's not one single policy that we should believe would be a panacea of some sort,” he said.
Besides creating more competition among providers, which the mayor’s plan aims to do, he said the city could provide supply-side subsidies to companies to extend access to underserved areas and demand-side subsidies in payments to consumers so they can afford internet access.
But the best solution for both accessibility and affordability, on which there’s broad agreement, is a municipal broadband option that can undercut the pricier options provided by private firms with a profit motive.
As Seamans noted, unlike other states, New York does not prohibit localities from creating their own public internet option. And a public provider would be successful in a densely populated city like New York. “You would imagine that you'd be able to sign up a lot of customers. And we observe that these types of public providers have been operating, and in some cases, operating very successfully in a number of other cities and areas throughout the U.S. So it sort of stands to reason that you could have the same thing here in New York City,” he said.
Farmer, the city’s chief technology officer, has said that building out a citywide system will require buy-in from private firms.
“One of my biggest criticisms of this administration is, while there is a passion to do it, and seemingly bridge the digital divide, it hasn't done so in a comprehensive and a centralized manner,” said Noel Hidalgo, executive director of BetaNYC, a civic technology group. “It's had a number of different initiatives, all coming from different perspectives, but seemingly never really getting the complete attention of the mayor.”
Hidalgo said the mayor should appoint a deputy mayor who can continuously lead programs that chip away at the problem. Though the mayor’s former counsel, Maya Wiley, who is now running to succeed him, did make it a priority issue, the portfolio seems to have been largely ignored after she left the mayor’s office in 2016. “It isn't something that just happens,” Hidalgo said. “There needs to be incremental steps taken constantly to get us to building a concrete bridge over the digital divide.”
Hidalgo said the city needs to invest in fiber-network infrastructure for all public facilities, which some agencies like the NYPD have already done. But it should also be vigilant in sustaining that infrastructure, he said, pointing to the failure of NYCWiN, an internal wireless network that cost the city more than $900 million since 2009 and which the administration decided to scrap after it crashed in 2019. The system was too expensive to maintain, the mayor said last year, and the city would switch over to a commercial provider.
That was yet another missed opportunity to expand the reach of broadband, Kallos said. “We should have flipped the switch on NYCWiN,” he said, “and given it to the people.”
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette